Swap Your Purchases for Some Fair Trade

The United Kingdom's Fair Trade Organization launched its annual campaign to change consumer behavior, inviting people to flex their consumer muscles for the good of people everywhere by swapping out their usual product purchases for certified fair trade ones for just two weeks to start.

When you buy certified fair trade products, your purchases help local farmers and craftspeople earn a fair and stable income and thus allow communities to prosper and organize. Coffee, teas, chocolate, cotton, cosmetics, fruits, and ice cream - yes even ice cream can all be bought with the assurance that the community that produced its ingredients are building a sustainable future.

And leading the delicious path to fair trade this month is Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, whose founders have committed to using all fair trade ingredients by 2013. Co-founder Jerry Greenfield said, “Fair Trade is about making sure people get their fair share of the pie. The whole concept of Fair Trade goes to the heart of our values and sense of right and wrong. Nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting somebody else.”

Story of Stuff Enriches School Discussions and Hits the NYT

The New York Times ran a front-page piece today on how the runaway viral video success, "The Story of Stuff," has become a part of curriculum in some schools. The 20 minute animation describes the history of consumerism as a lifestyle choice using humor and simplicity.

While teachers favor its use over say that other hit, "Inconvenient Truth" for a few reasons, one of which is duration, some parents aren't so happy about the results. When one daughter came home with a lesson plan for her family, her dad took it to the board.

The New york Times reports that:

Most parents take such needling with humor. But Mark Zuber, a parent of a child at Big Sky High School in Missoula, had a stronger reaction when a teacher showed the video to his daughter last year. “There was not one positive thing about capitalism in the whole thing,” Mr. Zuber said.

Corporations, for example, are portrayed as a bloated person sporting a top hat and with a dollar sign etched on its front.

He described the video as one-sided. “It was very well done, very effective advocacy, but it was just that,” he said.

Mr. Zuber argued before the Missoula County School Board that the way in which “The Story of Stuff” was presented, without an alternative point of view, violated its standards on bias, and the board agreed in a 4-to-3 vote.

Makes us wonder whether the number of hours our kids consume of commercials on television should count as homework.

The Story of Stuff blog reports that:

Toni Rehbein, the School Board chair, who confirmed that the board’s intention was not to prevent use of The Story of Stuff in classrooms or to squelch much needed attention on environmental issues, as long as such discussions welcome diverse opinions. She told us that the emails of support for Story of Stuff which the Board received from around the world had made a big impact and she assured us that the Board planned to issue a statement clarifying their position. We look forward to seeing that statement.

Meanwhile, in School Board elections on May 4th, Missoula citizens removed incumbent Rick Johns, one of the School Board members who had supported Mr Zuber’s concerns, further securing the majority of those who welcome environmental discourse and promote academic freedom.

Congo and the Fight for Minerals

Often seen as a theater of ethnic cleansing, the Congo suffers from the brutal repercussions of being a mineral rich land. Here, mercenary profit drives genocide and systematic rape. As a Belgium colony, the Congo produced large amounts of gold which helped to fund WWII efforts. Now overseen by warlords and guarded by glassy-eyed gun-bearing youths, this once rich land produces the minerals required to make our electronic goods and gold jewelry. Writer and activist Ann Garrison offers this interview to Pacifica Radio's KPFA.